


Bittersweet

by Ladiama



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale loves dessert, Cooking, Crepes, Crowley loves Aziraphale, Demons don't taste sweetness, First Kiss, Food, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 13:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19394803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiama/pseuds/Ladiama
Summary: If you’d ask Crowley – provided he had been plied by several litres of Romanée-Conti and feeling in a particularly confessional mood – what was worst about falling, he’d whisper: “Not being able to taste sssweetness anymore.”





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> In the series, Crowley is always watching Aziraphale eat dessert over coffee... I thought, what if... and this fic basically wrote itself.   
> It's a mix of book and series canon, all mistakes are mine.

The worst thing about falling* according to Crowley was not, as one would expect, being remolded into the form of a snake, or the inability to ever fully remove the sulphur stench from your stylish suit jackets. No, if you’d ask Crowley – provided he had been plied by several litres of Romanée-Conti and feeling in a particularly confessional mood – in short, if you’d ask him at his most vulnerable, he’d whisper: “Not being able to taste sssweetness anymore.”

* _sauntering vaguely downwards_

\---

At first, the inability to distinguish sugary sensations hadn’t posed a real problem. As a rule, snakes don’t eat fruit, and even when he’d assumed human form after the Garden, eating wasn’t particularly high on his list of favourite activities. Besides – mutton stew and flatbread taste fine with a fifth of your taste buds malfunctioning.

\---

“Well, I thought I’d try Petronius’ new restaurant.”

Aziraphale, in contrast, positively _lived_ for food. Well, not lived, exactly, of course. But definitely thrived on putting many new and exciting culinary things in his mouth.* And Crowley had _had_ never tasted an oyster – in truth, he hadn’t tasted much of anything. He preferred to skip eating where possible. So he’d let the angel tempt him, much to Aziraphale’s hardly concealed delight. The oysters had been good – salty and acidic – and the wine almost sufficient to drown out his memories of a good man dying pleading to his father in the sweltering Judean heat.

* _And later, on some, rather lonely, nights, Crowley wondered what other experimentation involving mouths the angel might be as eagerly enthusiastic for._

Perhaps it had been the wine, but something had enamoured Crowley to the angel’s extended company that night. And although there wouldn’t be many repeat evenings in the subsequent centuries – not even Aziraphale could find much joy in early medieval greasy, mustardy cooking – an unspoken tradition of dinners was started.

\---

In 1415, Crowley found the angel enjoying one of the smaller banquets thrown by the Duke de Berry.

"I should've known I’d run into you here," Crowley murmured as he slid behind Aziraphale and into the empty seat on his other side. "Not trying to save greedy Jean's soul for your side I hope?"

The angel pursed his lips. Ah, if Crowley could only watch Aziraphale's expressive face forever.

"No, dear boy," Aziraphale said. “I was sent down here for some upcoming battle.”

“What side are you on?” Crowley asked, eyebrows raised. Hell had given him a similar directive.

“England, I believe,” Aziraphale replied absentmindedly, reaching across the table for a slice of roast duck with orange glaze. Crowley stared at him while the angel was engrossed in chewing, fingers and lips sticky and shiny from the undoubtedly sweet syrup. He had never understood cooking with fruit, especially not where meats were involved. In his opinion it made everything horribly sticky and did nothing to improve the taste – for him, of course. But he could enjoy Aziraphale’s delight.

The demon sighed, and opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment about collaboration with the enemy –

“Oh dear, I believe I’m being terribly rude,” Aziraphale turned towards him, proffering his plate. “Here, have some. It’s really quite delicious!”

Crowley’s chest did an odd little contracting movement. _Weird_ , he thought vaguely, _I didn’t know bodies were supposed to do that_. His eyes flit from Aziraphale’s painfully frank face to the piece of glazed duck. In a few seconds, Aziraphale’s expression would falter and he’d slowly lower the plate, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. Crowley’s body made a decision before the more conscious parts of his brain had finished running anxious scenarios and bickering about _being a demon, for Satan’s sake, what are you even in doubt about?_

He snatched the duck from the plate and plopped it into his mouth.

Yikes.

It was _exactly_ as sticky as he’d imagined, maybe even _more so._

It tasted of sticky, acidic duck. Like duck fat, or duck jelly, but _stickier_. With a side of extra acid from the orange and nothing to temper it but the non-taste of bland, unseasoned duck meat.

It was not, in short, a pleasant experience.

But Aziraphale was watching him so intently, his lips already poised in a barely contained smile. To him, it must have tasted _divine_.

Crowley shuddered inwardly, pulled himself together, swallowed, and croaked:

“Yesss. Very good.”

Before Aziraphale could react, Crowley started loading his plate with other bits from the table. Some mutton, a side of peacock – mercifully without any glazes – a bit of pie, enough to deter the angel from offering him any more culinary highlights.

“Why are you _here_ , then?” he managed around a mouth-full of pie. It was good and salty. Crowley was going for the wine next to properly flush the sticky duck from his palate.

“Oh.” Aziraphale turned his gaze to the table again. He had a vaguely guilty air about him; wringing his hands in his lap and lifting his shoulders ever to slightly. “The Duke has this truly marvellous library and apparently, his craftsmen will present him with a new manuscript tonight. I was just hoping to catch a glimpse of it.”

He smiled at Crowley, who did his damnedest to keep a smooth face. He’d heard about the Duke of Berry’s library. And if the wall hangings in the dining room were any indication of opulence, his manuscripts must be made out of pure gold.

“Typical,” he said, with an ever so slight hint of a smile that had triumphed regardless of Crowley’s excellent control of his face muscles.

The rest of the evening was filled with more food – most of it sufficiently enjoyable for Crowley to forget about the disaster duck – a peek at a truly exquisite illuminated manuscript presented by three brothers, and several litres of fine wine that may or may not have been partly consumed in the Duke’s empty library after the locked door had been convinced that barring two supernatural entities from entry was a very bad life choice indeed. And if the English armies won in October despite having apparently had had all odds against them… well, Crowley could always claim to have done his best, with the dysentery and whatnot.*

* _He hadn’t actually been responsible for the dysentery. Bad hygiene and lack of food will take care of that all by themselves. He and Aziraphale had agreed to thwart each other with the minimum effort involved. Crowley had helped the French raise a bigger army, Aziraphale had nudged the English long-bow men on the field that day. Then they’d slipped away because neither of them could actually stand to watch the unfolding massacre, instructions or no._

\---

Crowley danced deftly around the sugar issue for the following centuries. Whenever the angel invited him out to dine – and it was always Aziraphale asking Crowley, even if the angel may not have realised it, because Crowley knew bugger-all about food and wouldn’t have had the first idea where to take him – Crowley made sure to avoid the sweeter dishes. He carefully cultivated the impression of cool haughtiness whenever desserts were mentioned. _Me?_ He’d convey with a tip of his chin and a raised eyebrow. _Angel, you know I only take coffee – black as my wings – as a palate cleanser._ *

* _And really, wasn’t he thankful that Europe had picked up on the delight that was black coffee so that he had an excuse to skip sweets._

He hoped it worked. He suspected it didn’t, if Aziraphale’s amused indulging twitch around the eyes was anything to go by. But at least he didn’t have to put any sweets into his mouth.

That is, until he rescued the angel from the clutches of neck-averse revolutionaries.

Crowley strongly suspected he’d been set up, because really, who goes walking into a peasant revolution in aristocrat’s clothes just for _crêpes_?! Reprimanded for miracles his ass. But although he grumbled in the privacy of his head, Crowley found he couldn’t actually mind the angel’s poorly concealed plots overly much.

His grumbly litany distracted him from the immediate problem at hand, however. Aziraphale had taken the lead to some “delightful little crêpe shop, not so far from here”, darting between piles of rubbish and weaving through charming winding alleys. All too soon they had squeezed themselves into a cosy table in the corner of an equally cosy – and very French – _crêperie_.

Before Crowley could launch into his ‘I’m an entirely too cool occult entity to eat _anything_ as sweet and homey as crêpes’-spiel, Aziraphale had already ordered a sizable helping of crêpes for two and an accompanying bottle of sweet wine in much more rapid French than he’d possessed back in the Bastille. In no time, Crowley was looking at a plate of piping-hot crêpes - neatly folded into triangles and drizzled with something syrupy.

He swallowed.

Aziraphale was already digging in with the most overjoyed expression on his face.

 _Ok_ , Crowley amended, _maybe he truly did have a craving for pancakes._

When Aziraphale took the first bite of crêpe from his fork, he even closed his eyes in the most blissful expression Crowley had ever seen on the angel’s face. Then his eyes locked with Crowley’s and the delighted twinkle Crowley saw in there, the joyous crinkles around them, meant Crowley could only eat his plate clean to please him.

It wasn’t as bad as the glazed duck had been almost four centuries ago. The crêpes tastes of fried flour and the syrup wasn’t actually very sticky, although it made the whole mess rather soggy. The wine – sweet wine is never actually very sweet, not even if you’re in possession of a fully functioning palate – was sufficient to wash down any lingering mealiness, and the conversation distracting. Halfway through the lunch, Aziraphale launched into a spirited monologue about the vagaries of the revolutionaries vis-à-vis culture, and how was he supposed to acquire any new tomes for his collection now?

Crowley hung from his lips silently, resting his chin in one hand and making feints at his plate with his fork. He didn’t register half of Aziraphale’s complaints, but he did use the angel’s passionate investment in the subject to quietly miracle away the last of his crêpes. No harm done, right?

\---

Occasionally, Crowley wondered what Aziraphale tasted when he carefully deconstructed a petit-four or heartily dug into a piece of apple crumble. He’d sip his coffee and watch the angel eat dessert, musing. It had been almost 6000 years since he’d tasted any sugar – or rather, the celestial equivalent of sugar – and to his dismay, the memory had all but faded. He might have remembered the sensation in the first two millennia or so, but now, watching Aziraphale wrap his lips around another piece of lavish _pâtisserie_ , Crowley’s mind drew a blank and his stomach twisted imperceptibly.

\---

Sometimes, late at night and unable to catch sleep, Crowley was painfully aware of a hollowness in his mouth. An unwholeness.

Those were the nights he drank strong spirits until he forgot he even existed.

\---

After they had swapped bodies again and dined at the Ritz, Crowley felt at a loss. Without the vague feeling of obligation that he had to tempt humans, or at least make up creative memos for his superiors about all the tempting he was absolutely doing, he didn’t actually know how to fill his days. He had no hobbies or interests to speak of and he could only bully his plants so much before they’d truly die of fear.

If Crowley would’ve been honest – and he rarely was, least of all to himself – he would have had to admit that most of his ‘hobbies’ had always revolved around annoying, rescuing or delighting Aziraphale.

Which is why he – despite the lack of self-insight – found himself on the ratty couch* in the back of Aziraphale’s shop most days, lounging and idly browsing through books that didn’t really interest him. Crowley had briefly considered quelling his boredom with another prolonged nap, but the recent almost-end-of-the-world and continuous threat of their respective head offices had put immortality into perspective.

* _The couch in question was slowly being miracled out of its offensive lumps._

“What would you think of closing the shop early and having dinner upstairs?” Aziraphale asked, head sticking around the corner of the back room. “I tried my hand at a bit of real cooking, you know, with real recipes and ingredients and such, and I found a pancake recipe that’s absolutely mouth-watering!”

Crowley twisted in his sprawled-out position on the couch to properly look at the angel. His glasses were pushed into his hair – the light in the back room was a bit dim for reading – and he squinted against the light coming in from the shop behind Aziraphale. The angel had moved into the doorway and was hopping lightly from foot to foot – whether in excitement or nerves Crowley couldn’t say against the glaring light.

“Like… crêpesss?” Crowley asked.

“Yes, a little like crêpes,” Aziraphale said, standing still. “I’m sure you’ll like them!”

Crowley’s heart sunk. After everything they’d been through, especially last month, would this be the moment where he had to shatter some of Aziraphale’s happiest memories? The angel would certainly blame himself for forcing Crowley to eat crêpes back in the 1790s. Worse, he would be so disappointed to miss the opportunity to share his cooking with Crowley.*

* Where had Aziraphale even learned to cook? _The part of Crowley’s brain that was not occupied with wiggling his way out of this dilemma idly wondered. It was not a big part of his brain_.

They had promised to be honest, now, hadn’t they?

“I’d love to,” Crowley replied. Aziraphale smiled broadly. “Do you want me to scare any customers off?”

“No dear, I think I can manage them myself,” the angel chuckled before stepping back into the shop.

Not much later, Crowley was studying a beer bottle while seated at Aziraphale’s sturdy wooden dining table. The angel had muttered something about last preparations, pushed a beer into Crowley’s hands and puttered off into the tiny kitchen.

Crowley hadn’t been above the bookshop a lot. He’d been aware of an apartment, but knowing that Aziraphale hardly slept and preferred to spend all his time with his books, there really hadn’t been much reason to come here. Apparently, neither had Aziraphale, because the place looked even dustier than the shop downstairs.

The dining table was clean, however, decorated with a plaid cloth and already fully set.

_Cooking._

Crowley tried to imagine Aziraphale in the kitchen. Did he even know how a stove worked? Crowley sure as hell didn’t. Or he pictured the angel seated at this table, trying his self-prepared meals in the same kind of fussy concentration with which he poured over his sixteenth-century incunables.

Crowley shook his head and took a swig of his beer. It was good; German, a little heavy, but not an actual _dark_ beer.

“Tah-daah,” Aziraphale proudly presented a plate full of steaming pancakes balanced on a pot – presumably containing hot water to keep them warm. He was wearing a checkered red-and-white apron and beige tartan mitts. Crowley smiled despite the threat of a bland dinner experience.

Aziraphale carefully lowered the pot onto the table-mat and undid his apron.

“Do you like the beer, dear?”

Crowley made some affirmative noises, eyeing the pile of pancakes. Something was off. For one, there were green and pink bits sticking out of them. Secondly, there was no syrup on the table, no sugar, nothing sweet – although Aziraphale might at any moment return to the kitchen to fetch them.

The angel disappeared into the kitchen and, moments later, emerged _sans_ apron and mitts but with a bowl of… something.

“Cheese?” Crowley asked incredulously when the bowl was set in front of him.

“Well, yes, it’s more appropriate to this recipe.” Aziraphale had taken the seat opposite him. He was fidgeting again, but his face spoke of barely contained mirth. He gestured to the plate between them. “After you!”

By now, Crowley had become fairly suspicious. Cheese was not what he associated with crêpes, especially not in the immediate environment of Aziraphale. More importantly, his angel* was rarely this openly sneaky. But he trusted Aziraphale and knew him not to be the person for mean pranks (that was more Crowley’s department, and then only towards the truly deserving).

* _His angel, in contrast to the other angels Crowley knew, who were right hypocrites made of sneak._

Without really observing what he was doing – Crowley thought that perhaps it would be better if he got it over quickly before he lost his nerves and spilled his secret to Aziraphale anyway – Crowley shoved two pancakes on his plate, sprinkled some grated cheese on top, muttered “Enjoy” and took a bite.

Crowley stopped chewing.

His mental gears screeched to a halt, realigned themselves, and started turning in the opposite direction.

Aziraphale shot him a worried look.

 _It was delicious_.

Crowley might have actually moaned audibly. Aziraphale released a breath he hadn’t needed to hold.

The pancakes, contrary to Crowley’s expectations, were salty and onion-y with a hint of foamy bitterness underneath. On a better inspection of what was on his plate, Crowley could distinguish bits of leek and bacon. He swallowed.

“It’s bloody amazing, angel,” Crowley said. “What did you put into it? _Where did you even find this recipe?_ ”

Aziraphale, who had started to dig in himself now that he’d seen that all was well, replied:

“A nice Dutch young lady gave it to me after I returned her backpack to her. It had been stolen by a terribly rude fiend.”

Crowley tried to imagine that conversation, and failed.

“It’s really simple, actually,” Aziraphale continued. “You make the batter with beer and add the tasty bits right before baking.”

Crowley raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Well – obviously the cutting and mixing and baking and – oh dear – the flipping took some practice,” Aziraphale said with the air of one who had removed several pancakes from the top of wall cabinets and behind stovetops. “But in essence, it’s really quite elegantly uncomplicated.”

“And you did all of thisss, for me?” Crowley asked, his voice not rising above a whisper now. He didn’t dare look Aziraphale in the eye. Instead, Crowley stuffed another piece of pancake in his mouth. They really were _very good_. He made a mental note to be more kind to Dutch tourists.

“I wanted to apologise,” Aziraphale said, speaking softly himself.

Crowley’s eyes shot up. His angel looked incredibly ashamed.

“Whatever for?” Crowley asked, ready to soothe whatever slights Aziraphale imagined to have committed.

“For being so unobservant. I should have known. But I didn’t realise until we swapped bodies and I had that ice cream. All these centuries! I can only imagine –“ Aziraphale’s brow was knitted in a pained expression. _Has he been brooding on this since the trials?_ Crowley worried.

“I…” Crowley swallowed around an annoying bit of pancake that seems to have stuck in his throat. Dangerous things, pancakes. Could choke you up.

He grabbed Aziraphale hand where it’s lying on the table, next to his knife. Opened his mouth to finish his sentence. But then Crowley thought better of his plan, released Aziraphale’s hand and stood up. Aziraphale’s expression turned even more worried.

As Crowley walked around the table and bent down until his nose almost touched Aziraphale’s, he said softly:

“You really needn’t have done this, angel. But _thank you_ ,” and kissed him carefully.

After an agonizing millisecond that seemed to last a decade to Crowley, Aziraphale’s hand slid around Crowley’s neck, pulling him closer. Aziraphale twisted his head to deepen the kiss.

And despite not having been able to savour sweetness for millennia, it was the sweetest thing Crowley had ever tasted.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Obviously, if you go into a modern crêpe shop there are lots of savoury options. I'd like to imagine however that Crowley, with his limited enjoyment of food, does solely associate crêpes with sugar because Aziraphale does. 
> 
> 2\. I think Aziraphale already started noticing Crowley's lack of love for sweet things from the French Revolution onwards - I'm sure he'd seen him miracle away his food, and conclude that Crowley wasn't only putting up a front about being cool but genuinely didn't like sweets. However, he didn't realise that as a demon Crowley was physically unable to taste sugar until the body swap (I'd like to think their bodies take on a bit of the owner, so while Aziraphale would've been able to taste some sugar in the ice cream because, as an angel, he could perceive sweetness, his senses would've been very dulled by Crowley's 'mark' on his body. Crowley wouldn't be able to taste sugar even when in Zira's body.)
> 
> 3\. Jean de Berry is famous for his manuscripts. The one mentioned here is the Très riches heures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_Duc_de_Berry 
> 
> 4\. The battle they influence is the Battle of Agincourt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt) later immortalised by Shakespeare in Henry V.
> 
> 5\. The recipe for savoury crêpes is my own based on German Flammkuchen and Dutch pancakes. Essentially, you make Dutch pancakes (slightly heavier variety of crêpes, http://joylovefood.com/dutch-pancakes/) but substitute the milk for a blond beer and let it sit for a bit. Then add savoury toppings of your choosing to the batter, cook, and add grated Gouda before eating. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! I have only written academic pieces recently but Good Omens was just too inspiring not to write something.


End file.
